True musicianship

My pastor mentioned the other week about a conversation he had with his daughters. He was driving his van with some of his daughters and was tired of what was flipping through radio stations. He came across classic rock like "Taking care of business" and others. One of his daughters commented how those songs were songs where they actually play music (guitar solos, bridges etc.)

It got me thinking and listening to what is on Christian radio with new ears. I now notice that some of the stuff on Christian radio is all about the lyrics, with a bit of music as a bed to support the lyric. Lyrics are good, but WHERE ARE THE TRUE MUSICIANS?


On the flip side, how many of us remember songs where the we didn't even know what the lyrics were, but were hooked on the music?

That is a big problem with mainstream radio, whether Christian or "top 40."  It is all so cookie-cutter--find a groove, slap a melody on it, repeat.  The singers and images are more important than the "art" of it.  There are too many stars and not enough innovators.

One of the Family Guy cutaways sums this up perfectly.

It has Stewie (the baby) as an old man, muttering under his breath at some young teenagers outside regarding the music/"junk" they listen to "nowadays".

"Back when I was there age, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, now THAT was real music." was the punchline.
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To sum it up, its all in the ear of the listener - and quite frankly, from my experience, the normal populous isn't brought up with an ear for music. They're brought up with listening to the words.

Do you know the primary reason I hear of why people don't like extreme metal? They can't understand the words. That's like not like a juice box because you can't see the juice through the straw and tiny hole.

ThomasEversole wrote:One of the Family Guy cutaways sums this up perfectly.

It has Stewie (the baby) as an old man, muttering under his breath at some young teenagers outside regarding the music/"junk" they listen to "nowadays".  

"Back when I was there age, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, now THAT was real music." was the punchline.
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To sum it up, its all in the ear of the listener - and quite frankly, from my experience, the normal populous isn't brought up with an ear for music.  They're brought up with listening to the words.  

Do you know the primary reason I hear of why people don't like extreme metal?  They can't understand the words.  That's like not like a juice box because you can't see the juice through the straw and tiny hole.

Occasionally I will try to introduce someone to extreme metal (stupid me), and yeah their response is typically about not understanding the lyrics, not being able to sing along, or (and they'll say it exactly like this, with the scare quotes) "I don't care for the "singing.""

My response, inwardly, is usually a groan of frustration. Like, dude, you totally missed the point. Just...nevermind. They don't get it, and I've almost completely given up on trying to get anybody to get it.

I knew a guy in college who once said that he didn't like metal because there was no musicianship in it. Yeah...ok. He was a cool guy otherwise, but just didn't get metal at all. The musicianship is precisely one of the reasons I listen to metal.

Forget about metal for a minute. Even classic rock has a lot more musical ability shown as to what is playing on the radio today.

And the same goes true for what is on Christian radio.

And yes I realize I sound like the crotchety old man while I write this. Now get off my lawn! You dad gum kids! grumble mutter....where's my walker?!?

There's surely some truth to the idea that most pop music isn't too sophisticated musically.  It's meant to be fun and catchy rather than intricate and challenging.  That said, ok.  Number one, people like it.  Number two, there's a different skill to writing effective pop songs than technical metal or anything else that might require musicianship on a higher level, but it's still a particular skill. 

I used to think I was some great guitarist (I was wrong, ha!) and I would totally look down on most pop or even metal or whatever that was musically simple.  It was really frustrating to me that SO many people loved all of this stuff that was just so terrible!  I've been a lot less frustrated with the world as I grew older and started to think, "It's a simple song, but people like it.  Ok!"

I hear ya Grindboy.  I spent a lot of time in music theory and analysis classes where I learned to value complexity and virtuosity over simplicity.  I just could not understand how people could like stuff like Pitbull, but then I realized that people weren't listening to Pitbull for some sort of artistic interaction, they were listening to Pitbull for something to party to.  All they care about was the groove.  That's perfectly fine.  We all listen to different music for different reasons.